WASHINGTON, D.C. – FWD.us President Todd Schulte issued the following statement today based on reporting that DHS is considering selling 11 mega warehouse jails:
“This new report from NBC News indicating DHS is considering selling 11of the ICE mega warehouse jails is a recognition of the intense opposition to these warehouse jails and the overwhelmingly unpopularity of this administration’s ICE enforcement actions. That they are already considering selling properties and retain over $100 billion dollars is an unintended but clear signal from the administration that they do not need another $71 billion for ICE and CBP on top of the $200 billion they received in appropriations in last year’s reconciliation bill.
“The pushback to these proposed warehouse jails and the for profit ICE jails like Dilley and Delany Hall has been consequential and from across the ideological spectrum. From Mississippi to Tennessee, to Georgia to Utah, public opposition has come often from Republicans, including U.S. Senators. The Department’s own Inspector General has opened investigations into potential conflict-of-interest and contracting issues. Many of these potential ICE megajails has been halted via litigation and their violations of local and state law. And press reports continue to circulate the government is considering a massive private-prison bail-out and buy-out to find a different — though still terrible — path forward.
“The American public remains rightly outraged by efforts to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on ICE terrorizing communities and building warehouse jails to incarcerate tens of thousands of immigrants, rather than restoring cuts to health care and focusing on the cost of living. This new story on these deliberations within the administration shows that public pressure works, that it needs to continue, and why the administration should abandon this wildly unpopular, harmful effort.”
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